1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the ergonomics of controls on a computer chassis. More particularly, the present invention relates to the ergonomic placement of controls on a personal computer chassis, and laptop computer chassis.
2. Description of the Related Art
Over the years computers have decreased in size and increased in speed. They have gone from the engineering lab and into the office place. They have further proceeded from the office place and into the home. Computers are being used every day for some of the most complex computing tasks such as missile launch control as well as some of the most simple tasks such as getting a recipe for apple pie from cooking software.
Presently, personal computers for use in the home are box-like and lack the design and ergonomic controls that make them completely suitable for home use. In essence, the present personal computers are computers designed for office or business use and then were required to function in the home.
Many personal computers have software control interfaces for compact disk ("CD") controls, volume controls, or telephone answering machine controls. Software controls are generally in the form of programs which provide windows on the computer screen. The user can enter the window and launch a program (such as a telephone dialer, FAX, or answering machine) or adjust volume (bass, treble), contrast on the screen, power consumption of the computer, etc. Thus, if a user wants any functionality from these programs, he must launch the appropriate interface software.
A drawback of having to launch interface software occurs when a user is in the middle of other tasks on his personal computer. For example, suppose a user is in the middle of preparing a document or a complex spread sheet and wishes to adjust the volume of the speakers or control the CD player to play a different song or disk. The user must stop working, launch the interface necessary to control the volume or CD player, make the necessary adjustments (via a mouse or key stokes), then return to the document or spread sheet that he was working on. This can be a laborious task in some cases.
It would be advantageous to merge some of the controls of consumer electronics into the area of personal computer electronics in an ergonomic fashion in order to alleviate the laborious tasks of, for example, changing volume or controlling a CD player easier to the user.